


A Very Un-Merry Birthday

by blaindersonkummel



Series: Klaine Advent 2017 [8]
Category: Glee
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Birthday, Family, Fluff, Friendship, Innuendo, M/M, Surprises
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-13
Updated: 2017-12-13
Packaged: 2019-02-14 05:05:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13000479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blaindersonkummel/pseuds/blaindersonkummel
Summary: Inspired by a 2 and a half year oldtweet by nerdevonI’ve had saved as a fic idea for AGES (spoiler at link). Blaine’s birthday should be a happy occasion - but not when all his family and friends forget about it.Written for Days 8, 9, 10, 11 AND 12 of Klaine Advent 2017 (since I was away over the weekend)Prompt Words: Health, Inch, Judgement, Key, Limited (see if you can spot them all!)





	A Very Un-Merry Birthday

**Author's Note:**

> Read on Tumblr [here](http://blaindersonkummel.tumblr.com/post/168490562488/klaine-fic-a-very-un-merry-birthday).

It was a freezing cold February morning and Blaine couldn’t feel his toes. He was bundled up in bed with numerous blankets and pillows, but he just could not get warm. At 8am, he woke up groggily to his alarm and, without even opening his eyes, reached behind him for that extra body heat in the form of his toasty husband. Except instead he found a cold, empty spot. Kurt wasn’t there.

Confused and half asleep, Blaine activated his phone to find a calendar notification.

“Happy birthday, Blaine.” it said.

Oh yeah, that was today. Rolling over, he was faced with that empty spot and no human furnace in the form of his husband. That was odd. Kurt was much more prone to sleeping in for as long as possible.

Kurt usually loved birthdays. After his mother’s death, celebrating another year around the sun was something he and his dad both cherished. After all, it was a celebration that their loved ones still had their health.

Yet, here Blaine was, feeling particularly unloved as his husband wasn’t there with his usual birthday kiss and cup of coffee. Instead, in his place was a note left on his pillow.

Blinking the sleep from his eyes, and reaching over for the paper, Blaine smiled to himself as he unfolded the note. Blaine’s mind ran away with him as he made his guesses about Kurt’s mysterious message; Could it be the first clue in a birthday treasure hunt? Maybe it was to ask him to come to the kitchen where a birthday banquet would await him?

What Blaine wasn’t expecting, however, was this.

_B,_

_Got called in to work early today to help with an emergency! Didn’t want to wake you so just thought I’d sneak out and let you sleep. I left you a bagel in the kitchen – the cream cheese is in the fridge door._

_See you when I get back from work._

_K xx_

Blaine was… confused. For a second, he just stared at the paper in his hands, as if looking at it would change the words somehow. He flipped it over – there was nothing else there. He reread it again. And again. But still, the message was the same: Kurt definitely wasn’t waiting in the kitchen with a breakfast buffet. Kurt had forgotten Blaine’s birthday.

~

As Blaine got himself ready for class that morning, he found himself in a bit of a daze. Usually, with something as personally heart-breaking as his husband forgetting his birthday, Blaine would be a total mess. Instead, he seemed to go through the motions this morning – showering, dressing, and packing up the bagel Kurt left to eat on the way to class. He was so shocked by the note, he didn’t give himself a second to really register how he was feeling.

It wasn’t until he got to class that it really hit him. Literally.

“Hey, killer! Happy birthday!” with this greeting, he received a punch in the arm so forceful, it knocked the wind from him a little. His friend Janine from his class was then enveloping him in a hug and pulling back before he knew what happened.

“Oh! Oh, right. Errr thanks, Janine!” he said, trying to painfully plaster a smile on his face. “How- how did you know, though?”

Janine looked at him like he’d grown another head.

“Duh! Facebook, silly!” she punched him in the arm again, this time with a laugh.

Blaine loved having Janine as a friend but one day he would have to put a stop to that shoulder punch thing.

“Yeah, of course,” he shrugged, “silly me!”

She looked at him a bit funny then, cocking her head to the side and surveying him.

“Are you okay, Blaine? You’re not having some sort of quarter-life crisis right now, are you?”

Blaine tried to school his expression back to normal as he laughed her off again.

“What?! No! No, of course not!” he supplied overenthusiastically, “I guess it must just be from all the celebrations this morning.”

“Ooooh, Blainers,” she teased, a massive smirk on her face. “I thought I saw you walking a little funny on the way in here! Well, I at least hope Kurt gave you one hell of a celebration this morning. Eight inches of celebration!”

She laughed loudly at her own joke, throwing her head back. Yeah, if there was something else Blaine would change about Janine, it would be her filter.

He was about to respond to her remark (and maybe actually divulge the truth about Kurt forgetting his birthday) when their professor entered the room, calling for everyone to take their seats. When they were seated and had their notepads out, Blaine opened his mouth to respond, before being shushed by Janine and having her point to the lecturer at the front with a wink.

Today was going to be painful.

~

As could be expected by a day that began with his husband forgetting his birthday, the rest of Blaine’s day went just as horribly wrong.

He tried calling his mother, whom he hadn’t heard a word from yet, only to be greeted by a voicemail message telling him the cell phone was turned off. He then tried Cooper and got the exact same response. Sighing in frustration, he pocketed his phone and walked away from the building he’d just had class in.

A few days beforehand, Blaine had arranged to have a birthday lunch with Elliott at the NYU campus Starbucks. He made his way over there and went to grab a table, where he waited. And he waited. Blaine then went up to buy his third coffee. And he waited.

 _“Where are you, Elliott?”_ Blaine muttered to himself, throwing back the dregs of his last drink before checking his phone one more time to see if Elliott had messaged him.

In the bottom of his bag, Blaine had a birthday coupon he was planning to use this lunch time. Only now, without someone with him, and three coffees in, he wasn’t sure he could stand the looks of judgement from the other customers if he were to go claim his free birthday cupcake from the counter.

Just as he was about to cut his losses, a message chimed on his phone.

 **From:** _Starchild_  
**To:** _Blaine_

Oh my god. B, I’m so sorry! Got completely caught up in a project and totally lost track of time. I’m afraid I’m going to have to take a rain check today, I have class in 20 minutes :( We’ll reschedule soon, I promise <3

For yet another time today, Blaine felt his heart break. That was now four people he cared about, all forgetting him on his birthday.

 _Screw this_ he thought to himself, as he made his way to the counter, cupcake coupon in hand.

~

When he was feeling this depressed, there were usually only two people he could guarantee would be there to pull him back from the brink. However, one of those people had left Blaine a note this morning which started this feeling in the first place. The other person, Blaine hoped would just pick up the phone.

“Pleeeease,” Blaine muttered to himself, sitting on the steps outside the school’s entrance, scarf wrapped tight around his neck and fingerless gloves doing little to stop the cold biting his hands. “Come on, pick up.”

Blaine was now chewing on his nails when the dial tone stopped and a gruff voice sounded from the other end, sounding somewhat startled.

“He-hey, Blaine!” Burt Hummel answered jovially, if a little stilted. Blaine was so happy he could cry right now. Finally, someone besides Janine would acknowledge him today.

“Hi, Dad,” Blaine answered back, his voice sounding a little choked now. Of course, Burt Hummel was sharp as a tack to these things.

“Blaine, is something wrong?” he sounded a little panicked now, and suddenly Blaine felt like this was a stupid idea. Why had he gone running to Burt with this when he knew how stressed that would make his father-in-law? He didn’t want to be the cause of Burt having another damn heart attack, all because Blaine hadn’t had a few happy birthday greetings today.

Blaine swallowed thickly and was quick to reassure him, “No dad, I- I’m fine. I just wanted to speak to you.”

Blaine was now listening intently as there seemed to be muffled noises coming from the other end, as if Burt were covering the receiver with his hand or something. In fact, Blaine was sure he could hear voices.

“Burt? Are you there?”

“Oh, err, look Blaine, I’m sorry. I’m just in the repair shop. I’ve got one of the guys asking me about spark plugs. I’ve got to go, Blaine. Sorry! Call me if you need me.”

Blaine opened his mouth in shock, ready to respond to Burt’s abrupt conversation finisher, when the line went dead. Moving the device from his ear, Blaine now cradled his phone in his hands, looking down at it as though it would suddenly ring out his alarm clock and Blaine would wake up from a crappy dream and realise his birthday hadn’t even started yet. But it didn’t ring. Instead, a single tear splashed on to the screen, before Blaine wiped his eyes, pocketed his phone, and stood up from the steps to make the long commute home.

~

Blaine trudged up the stairs, one by one, very slowly, as though his body didn’t have the energy to care about anything today. It had been the absolute day from hell. He didn’t even know how he would respond when Kurt got back from work tonight and inevitably acted like he hadn’t just completely missed Blaine’s big day. He certainly didn’t want it to end in a fight.

Making his way to their front door, he pinched the bridge of his nose to alleviate the headache he’d been feeling all day from the stress of holding back his horrible mood. He paused for a second, before putting his key in the door and turning the lock.

Before he could even make his way across the threshold, he was instantly bombarded with an explosion of light, noise, and colour.

“SURPRISE!”

Blaine’s hand flew to his chest, covering his heart from the sudden attack he was sure he was experiencing as he recoiled from the barrage of senses. There, in front of him, stood a crowd of people, all looking at him with smiles on their faces, holding balloons, empty party poppers, blowers, and streamers. At the front of them all was Kurt, arms in the air.

There was a moment of laughter and applause from the group as Blaine suddenly seemed to catch on and his hand now moved to his mouth. When the laughter died down and everyone looked expectantly at him, Blaine suddenly only had one reaction.

There, in front of everyone, he burst into sobs. Some of the people started laughing again then, thinking he was overwhelmed and so happy with the surprise. But when Blaine looked at Kurt however, Kurt instantly knew something was wrong.

Springing into action, Kurt moved like a bullet towards Blaine, who still had one hand on the doorknob and the other covering his loud wails. Kurt moved in close to Blaine’s line of sight and put his hands either side of his husband’s face.

“Blaine, baby, what’s wrong?” Kurt looked as though he didn’t know whether to laugh or panic at this point.

Blaine managed to even his breathing a little more, but still he stuttered as he tried to get out his words through the convulsive sobs.

“I- I- I thought y-you’d all f- for- forgotten,” he cried.

The look on Kurt’s face was so distraught, Blaine immediately felt bad for putting it there.

“Forgot-? Of course we wouldn’t forget, sweetheart!” Kurt responded, with everyone else in the room suddenly cottoning on to why Blaine was crying messily in front of everyone.

Kurt grabbed him by the shoulders then and pulled his body as close to his own as possible in a crushing hug, one hand moving to play with the hair on Blaine’s neck as he whispered in his ear, instantly calming his husband.

_“I’m… I’m sorry, baby. I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean for it to backfire like this. I just wanted to keep everything a surprise.”_

Blaine now found himself looking over Kurt’s shoulder at the dozens of people gathered in front of him. He practically gasped aloud as he only now realised who was there.

“My mom… and Cooper? And your dad? Carole?”

Kurt pulled away from the hug then and held Blaine at arm’s length to look at the pure shock and awe which had now replaced the tears on his face. Blaine looked from the crowd, to Kurt, everything suddenly clicking into place.

“I can’t bel- Kurt!” Blaine suddenly laughed, tears springing back to his eyes again – only this time everyone could see they were happy tears, his hand covering his mouth again to hide to enormous smile which was about to take over his face.

“Happy birthday, son,” Burt said, stepping forward and wrapping Blaine in his own hug as they clung to one another, Blaine’s tears flowing freely again now.

~

“So, let me get this straight,” Blaine mused, perched in Kurt’s lap on their living room sofa, a mojito in his hand and his other arm holding onto Kurt for balance.

Their friends and family were now in full party mode; Burt and Pam were chatting nearby as Elliott and Janine compared tattoos and Cooper was caught in the middle of a diva off between Rachel and Tina on the karaoke machine.

“Okay, go on,” Kurt rolled his eyes, a playful smile over his husband having to dissect everything about his surprise.

“So, you weren’t really at work today? Just at Rachel and Jesse’s place, picking up the decorations?”

“Correct.”

“My mom and Cooper were flying in this morning and that’s why both of their phones were off?”

“Also true.”

“Elliott was helping you to decorate our place and he genuinely just forgot to tell me he couldn’t make it to lunch today?”

“Yeah, I’ll have words with him about that one.”

“And your dad had to hang up because he was worried I heard people arriving at our place?”

“Yep.”

“Damn,” Blaine ended his trail of thought here, unsure how to proceed, so he took another sip of mojito until it came to him.

“Okay, so I have one more question.”

Kurt smiled up at his husband who was getting steadily more tipsy and relaxed after the day’s events and he leant in to kiss the corner of his mouth.

“Okay, shoot.”

“Considering all the trauma I’ve gone through today,” he tried to look pouty and serious here, but just looked ridiculous, “how many birthday bumps do I get tonight?”

Blaine asked the question coyly, drawing his straw to his lips as he caught it with his tongue, before sucking it into his mouth. Kurt couldn’t help his loud and abrupt laugh as Blaine’s question caught him completely off guard and he tried to keep a straight face when people turned to see what the noise was.

“Oh honey,” Kurt said, steadying his husband on his lap and giving him a sly smile, “I don’t think that number is limited.”


End file.
